RANGER AGAINST WAR: Pick Your Poison <

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Pick Your Poison

With your big empty purse,
Every week it gets worse,

At least your breasts cost more than hers

--Fuck Me Pumps
, Amy Winehouse

Everybody gets so much information

all day long that they lose their common sense

--Gertrude Stein

_______________

Let us think of things that are more dangerous than terrorism in our lives, things that cross our radar with relatively little attention:


  • Medical mistakes: Misdiagnoses, incorrect and incompatible medications, hospital infections, botched surgeries. 100,000 of us die annually as a result of medical malpractice and complications.
  • Automobile accidents: Over 42,000 people die annually in road accidents in the U.S. As one study noted, the "equivalent of a plane load or more of people died on the roads" daily (Car Crashes Kill 40,000 Every Year). Motorcycle rider fatalities continued their nine-year increase, reaching 4,810 in 2006, accounting for 11% of total vehicular fatalities (exceeding the number of pedestrian fatalities for the first time since the NHTSA began collecting fatal motor vehicle crash data in 1975.)
  • Tobacco-related deaths: 443,000 people die in the U.S. annually as a result of primary, secondary and tertiary-related smoking effects (Smoking Deaths Worldwide.)
  • Natural disasters: Tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, lightening, infrastructure collapse -- take your pick. How many die? WikiAnswer says, "heaps".
  • Suicide: 30,000 to 80,000 -- stats vary, and ascertaining this particular form of death is difficult.

You get the idea.

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10 Comments:

Anonymous Underground Carpenter said...

Hi Lisa,

The SlowPoke cartoon is a howl! Humor is the best way to drive a point home.

So the choice was being screwed by the insurance companies or screwed by Nanny Government. Tough choice!

Dave

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 9:03:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

UC,

Glad you liked it, Dave. The political cartoon is one of the most exacting art forms, IMHO.

That message is just about the size of it, eh ?!?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 9:05:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous RangerHazen said...

Nanny Government??? Please...

Where I come from we call that a "false equivalence" analogy...

Stick with facts...focus on policy...and above all be reasonable....

That's the only way shit gets done as evidenced by Obama being the first President to succeed in giving Americans Health Care Reform... A process started by Teddy Roosevelt...

Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 12:26:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pick Your Enemy - I always get a kick out of "I Want My Country Back" Does anybody seriously think that our corporate overlords are going to meekly comply with that request?

Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 2:08:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Terrible said...

Being a non-union coal miner seems to rank right up there these days too.

Anon, unfortunately the people saying that very rarely think that it's the corporate masters who they need to take it back from. No they almost always seem to think they need to take it back from the people fighting for better wages, better health care, etc.

Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 2:39:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Sven Ortmann said...

http://boingboing.net/2009/12/30/odds-of-being-a-terr.html

Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 5:19:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Slowpoke is superb! Like a good poem, it wraps everything up in few words but with great completeness. Of course, it could be that the cartoon expresses my thoughts to a tee! :)

Jay in N.C.

Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 6:14:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Jay,

Glad you agree. Simple but eloquent presentation, I thought.

Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 6:57:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Terrible said...

I always really liked the SlowPoke cartoons and seeing this one reminds me I should visit their site regularly. It's been a long while since I have.

Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 9:17:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Wicked; brilliant.

Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 9:32:00 AM GMT-5  

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